Gunnell, Daniel, Kunar, Melina A. and Watson, Derrick G. (2020) Having a phone conversation delays but does not disrupt cognitive mechanisms. Journal of Experimental Psychology : Applied, 26 (2). pp. 199-217. doi:10.1037/xap0000239 ISSN 1076-898X.
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Abstract
Previous research has shown that talking on a mobile phone leads to impairments in a number of cognitive tasks. However, it is not yet known whether the act of conversation disrupts the underlying cognitive mechanisms (the Cognitive Disruption hypothesis) or leads to a delay in response due to a limit on central cognitive resources (the Cognitive Delay hypothesis). We investigated this here using two cognitive search tasks that investigate spatial learning and time-based selection: Contextual Cueing and Visual Marking. In Contextual Cueing, responses to repeated displays are faster than those to novel displays. In Visual Marking, participants prioritize attention to new information and deprioritize old, unimportant information (the Preview Benefit). Experiments 1 to 3 investigated whether Contextual Cueing occurred while people were engaged in a phone conversation, whereas Experiments 4 to 6 investigated whether a Preview Benefit occurred, again while people were engaged in conversation. The results showed that having a conversation did not interfere with the mechanisms underlying spatial learning or time-based selection. However, in all experiments there was a significant increase in response times. The results are consistent with a Cognitive Delay account explaining the dual-task cost of having a phone conversation on concurrent cognitive tasks.
| Item Type: | Journal Article |
|---|---|
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Psychology |
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Experimental Psychology : Applied |
| Publisher: | American Psychological Association |
| ISSN: | 1076-898X |
| Official Date: | 2020 |
| Dates: | Date Event 2020 Published 29 August 2019 Available 9 June 2019 Accepted |
| Volume: | 26 |
| Number: | 2 |
| Page Range: | pp. 199-217 |
| DOI: | 10.1037/xap0000239 |
| Status: | Peer Reviewed |
| Publication Status: | Published |
| Re-use Statement: | ©American Psychological Association, 2019. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000239 |
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
| Copyright Holders: | American Psychological Association |
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 11 June 2019 |
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 13 September 2019 |
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: | Project/Grant ID RIOXX Funder Name Funder ID |
| Related URLs: | |
| URI: | https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/118198/ |
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